The summer of 2020 will be forever remembered as the summer of COVID-19. I spent this summer on campus here at Eastern, being basically stranded in the University Court apartments for two and a half months.

In that time, in between fighting off crushing boredom and dealing with the uncertainty of the future, I also learned quite a bit about myself. Some of the things I learned were minor, but I also made several large discoveries.

For example, I learned that I will cry every time I watch the movie “E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial.” I watched it on Netflix at the start of the summer for the first time since childhood. About halfway through I thought to myself, “I’m going to cry at the end of this movie.” And an hour later, I was sitting alone on my couch with tears on my face.

I re-watched the movie about a month later to see if my tears were a one-time occurrence, and learned that they were not. I watched it again the next week to finalize my research, and cried again.

I am not sure what this says about myself. Maybe it means that I am growing emotionally as a person and will now allow myself to cry watching a movie, something that I had never done before this summer. Maybe it means that I was so bored and isolated over the summer that I would have cried at any movie. Maybe I just have a weakness for weird little aliens from the early 1980s.

Another discovery I made is that I will eat KFC much more frequently than I thought I would. I’m talking like four to five days a week for the entire month of July. I probably gained weight but I was afraid to check. In my defense, I did not know that KFC had fries. I had an obligation to try them, and it turns out they are really good.

Just to make sure, I tried them again and again. They were good every time. Maybe I should check again just to be sure.

Not all of my self-discoveries were good. I also learned that I could sleep for 16 hours in a day if the option presented itself. It was never a good decision, but it is hard to resist taking multiple naps on a hot day.

Additionally, I discovered that free streaming services are mostly terrible. I got bored with the options on Netflix and Hulu and went looking for other things to watch. I would not recommend it.

Hopefully next summer I can find another movie that makes me cry or discover a new fast food item.

Adam Tumino is a senior journalism major. He can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected]